NNSA LOOKING TO ACCELERATE RLWTF UPGRADE
NS&D Monitor
2/28/2014
The National Nuclear Security Administration is looking at options to potentially accelerate the schedule for a project to upgrade Los Alamos National Laboratory’s aging Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility. NNSA and the lab plan to replace the current facility with two new ones—one that would address low-level liquid waste and one that would address transuranic liquid waste. Design work on the low-level waste facility portion is approximately 90 percent complete, and while construction is currently scheduled to begin in the third quarter of this year, the agency is “ exploring options on the feasibility of accelerating” the start of construction, according to an NNSA official. The NNSA is also looking at ways to accelerate the completion of the low-level waste facility, which is currently scheduled to be built by early 2018, the official said.
The NNSA is also looking at ways to accelerate the completion of the planned transuranic waste facility, which is currently set to be finished in 2020. According to the NNSA official, the agency plans to have a baseline established for the transuranic waste portion of the facility by the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2016. “A procurement package for the design of the TLW is being developed and design activities are expected to begin by the end of FY 2014. In addition, the NNSA is looking at the option of a combined CD 2/3 [establish cost-and-schedule baseline/start construction] and an acceleration of the overall project schedule,” the NNSA official said. The NNSA declined to provide additional information this week on the options being considered to accelerate the schedules for the two planned facilities.
